


The Idiot's Guide to Snagging Your Mate

by abriata



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-25
Updated: 2011-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abriata/pseuds/abriata





	The Idiot's Guide to Snagging Your Mate

"Are you done showing off?"

Adam stretches, deliberately nonchalant, and says, "Bite me."

Tommy bares his teeth.

In Adam's defense, it's not his fault. Kris is just so _stubborn_. Adam waited patiently at first, because come on, fate, right? And after a month of that he tried the sensible approach, where he went to Kris and tried to talk about it. After Kris derailed the conversations multiple times by monologuing on everything from lasagna to rabbits Adam started to clue in that maybe his avoidance wasn't so much cluelessness as actual, you know, avoidance.

Undeterred, Adam worked the sneaky approach for a while. He mixed his clothes in with Kris', he switched first their shampoo and then their laundry detergent, and he made sure they hugged and nuzzled each other as much as was feasible. He even managed to chew on Kris once or twice, when he was nice and fuzzy-drunk and Adam had an excuse. He may have had to bribe Tommy into issuing the dare that gave Adam that excuse, but Kris doesn't need to know that.

But still it was all in vain. They only had a month left on the tour at that point, and Adam was getting desperate. He reluctantly commenced step four, and proceeded to devote his every free moment to gathering character witnesses who would talk him up in front of and to Kris. He also did his best to showcase the abilities he'd hired them to praise him on.

Unfortunately, that led to the current predicament, e.g. Tommy walking in while Adam tried to give Kris a backrub and feeding him cake that he secretly bought down the street but will go to his grave swearing he baked himself. From scratch.

When Tommy had walked in, Kris had frozen, taken stock of the situation, and then scrambled up and out so fast he might as well have been on all fours.

"Honestly, it's getting a little pathetic," Tommy says. He comes and sits next to Adam, laying his head on Adam's shoulder to soften the sting.

"I know," Adam says morosely. "I'll probably start begging soon."

"No, you won't," Tommy says.

"No, I won't," Adam agrees. "I am out of ideas, though."

Tommy snorts. "Don't ask me. We all had bets about how long it would take - the whole pool expired yesterday. I didn't know it was possible to be this stubborn."

"Obviously," Adam says, because of course after decades of waiting to meet his mate, he ends up with the one person who tries to defy their nature based solely on principle.

"You could crawl into his bunk naked one night?" Tommy finally offers up, after a suitably thoughtful silence.

"Yes, of course, because nudity solves everything."

Tommy doesn't take his tone personally, and he stays and cuddles with Adam until the buses load up.

\---

Adam doesn't quite stop after that. He's not getting anywhere, and maybe he would quit altogether except he goes three days without seeing Kris when he first tries. It's too depressing that he gets itchy and lonely without at least ten hugs a day, while Kris seems to be able to go the whole time with no ill effects. He doesn't do more than smile at Adam the next time he sees him. It wasn't even a different expression; not relieved or overly happy or slow like maybe he'd been aching the past couple of days like Adam had.

That's when Adam gives up. If he's not getting anywhere then he is damn well going to keep whatever shreds of dignity he has left. He hangs out with Kris whenever they've got time to do something, like eat or watch a movie, but he stops seeking him out for naptimes and late night cuddles. Kris doesn't seem to notice.

Tommy does. He sticks himself to Adam's side, back or front, depending upon the occasion, and he says bitchy things and grumpy things and threatens almost daily to cut off Adam's balls if he doesn't stop moping, but underneath it all he smells like sympathy. Adam gets by.

The last night of tour they're back in LA, so Adam drops his stuff off at home before soundcheck. Tommy comes with him, and when he sprawls across Adam's bed it's less playful than he's ever been before. Adam kneels over him, kisses him, holds his chin and tangles fingers in his hair and says, "After the show."

Everyone knows. There's no way they could avoid it, no way they could ignore Tommy's hormones going crazy and how Adam's burning ten degrees too hot.

Kris skitters away from them all night, watching them oddly. Adam would be hopeful if he hadn't given up, if he didn't plan on spending the next two days keeping Tommy in his bed. It turns out to be nothing anyway. When Kris hugs everyone and wishes Tommy a goodnight, he smells sincere.

Tommy lets himself be kept for three days. On the fourth morning he says goodbye and lets himself out, patting Adam's cheek clumsily. Adam throws himself back on the bed.

He's finally ready to go out and be alive again three days after that, but he waits one more day, because hey, it's been this long; he might as well go for the full week.

He buys groceries, stops by a Starbucks, takes a few pictures with fans. When he gets home he puts the groceries away, drinks his coffee, and dumps all his shit out of his bags so the cleaning service will get it the next time they're through.

Finally he unearths his phone and plugs it in to charge, and until it has enough juice to boot up he goes through his messages at home. He deletes the first five on principle, because if it's really important people call back. He skips through the monotonous mess, ignoring all the business ones and saving his mom's for later. The ones at the end are interesting though, because there's a whole series of different people saying they need to ask him about Kris. The last one is from Tommy and Adam feels he sort of owes him so he actually returns the call.

"What the fuck, Adam," Tommy says, right after hello because his mother raised him right. "Do you know where Kris is or not?"

It doesn't take that long to get the whole story, mostly because nobody knows anything. Kris finished the tour and then disappeared. Everyone thought he'd be with you, though I told them he wasn't," Tommy says.

"I'll find him," Adam says.

\---

Adam has always had a key to Kris' place, ever since the day Kris signed the papers to own the apartment Adam helped him pick out. Kris had pressed it into his palm and made him promise to come by whenever he felt like it, a privilege Adam had done his best to abuse.

So he knows what Kris' home smells like. He can tell what season it is outside, the last time it was cleaned, how long it’s been since he changed his sheets or anything he needs to know by standing in the front hallway and breathing in deeply a couple of times.

Adam knows as soon as he walks in that Kris has been gone almost as long as everyone suspects. The air isn't stuffy, but it doesn't smell like Kris the way it's supposed to. He goes to the bedroom, because he can, and he knows they're wrong about one thing. Kris spent the night here, just one, because his sheets smell faintly of stage sweat. It means Kris could be anywhere because he had a night to rest up and make plans. It's not likely he's staying somewhere in the city.

Adam does a sloppy approximation of making the bed and then gets back in his car. He knows where Kris has gone.

\---

Adam misses the same turn as he did last time. Then, Kris had told him at a break between songs, "The road was about five miles back."

Adam had slammed on the brakes. "You couldn't have told me this sooner?"

"Well, you bitched so much about my directions." Kris shrugged.

Adam groaned. Kris had described the route so many times Adam thought he could get there in his sleep, and he warned Kris that if he repeated the directions one more time Adam would make him walk it. Kris had nodded, smiling, and Adam was certain he wouldn't miss the tricky, hidden left turn.

Kris was radiating smugness. "Turn around," he said, "I'll point it out for you this time."

Adam finds it when he turns around, and now he's completely off the main roads. It's less than three hours from LA to Lake Isabella, but it's like a completely different world. Adam gives in to temptation and rolls his window down, barely fighting off the urge to stick his head out. The air smells like real air, with trees and animals; living, breathing creatures and dead rot. Adam is a city boy through and through, but there is a part of him that revels in the stink of the outdoors.

He parks his car at the end of the really long driveway. It's still half a mile up to the cabin, but Adam wants to stretch his legs out. If he gets it over with first thing it'll be less trouble dealing with that instinctual itch that wants him to go roll around in the dirt and chase squirrels and things. He shifts to all fours and arches his back, stretching. It's been too long.

When he takes off for the cabin he sprints. The burn feels good, his tongue's lolling out of his mouth ridiculously, but it's _fun_. He can smell Kris already, and he's not worried about making noise - Kris already knows he's coming.

It only takes him a couple minutes to get to the cabin, and the front door is open. He straightens himself back up and pads through the living room. There are clothes set out for him on the back of the couch, and he huffs a laugh and puts them on. They're the ones he left behind last time. Then he goes to the back balcony, leaning next to Kris at the railing and looking over the lake. The first night they'd come here, after they'd run around the whole lake just to run together, Kris had said, "I like it here, because it's the only place where I feel like I’m not constantly fighting myself."

"I was wondering when you'd get here," Kris says.

"Why, Kristopher, if I'd known you wanted me to chase you," Adam says, and Kris says sharply, "Don't."

Adam bites his tongue, forces himself to leave distance between them.

"This is stupid," Kris says.

"Yes, you are," Adam says, because he hasn't indulged his inner child recently.

Kris doesn't even spare him half a smile. "It's a stalemate," he says, like he honestly believes it. "I'm never going to give in and you're never going to give up."

"No, I'm not," Adam says, "because you're _wrong_."

"I know you think so," Kris says mildly, face smoothing, and Adam thinks _shit, shit_ , and casts around for something.

"It's not working, though," he says. It's really just a guess but Kris darts a wary look at him, and hey, he's on to something. "You liked having my smell around you, you cuddled just as much as I did, and you never tried to get away from any of it."

Kris shrugs. "I'm easygoing."

"That's not true," Adam says. "I'm wrong. You did get away. You came here."

"You know I like it here," Kris says.

"Yeah," Adam says. "And I know why. But what did I do that made you feel so out of control you had to come here?"

"It has nothing to do with you," Kris says, but Adam can smell the lie.

He doesn't call him on it though. Instead he takes a couple steps back, smiles and pulls out his phone. "Okay, then. If we've said everything, I guess I can get back to Tommy."

Kris makes a quiet, outraged noise and Adam thinks _gotcha_.

"I'm calling him," he informs Kris, and presses the dial button so Kris knows it's true.

Snarling, Kris snatches Adam's phone from him. Adam can hear the casing fracture with how hard Kris is squeezing it. His head is bowed, staring down at it. Adam bites back his answering growl and waits, waits, always waits.

Kris whispers, "Shit," breathes out, and Adam can see him force himself to relax.

Fuck this. It comes out a growl more than words, and Kris doesn't move fast enough to avoid Adam. He gets his fingers dug into Kris' arms, but Kris scrambles away, shifting into fur and shining teeth. Adam twists and follows him down.

They circle each other, Adam snapping every time Kris edges toward the door. Adam's bigger and stronger, and Kris has no hope of getting away. They both know it.

But Kris tries anyway. He lunges to the side, flattens himself down and darts past. He almost makes it, and Adam is fiercely proud of how fast he is, how determined. But Adam is faster, and he throws himself to the side, catching one of Kris' back legs in his jaw. Kris yelps and his front paws scrabble uselessly for leverage, and then Adam twists his head and spills Kris' legs out from under him.

Adam gets Kris pinned, and Kris kicks once, snaps once, and then Adam's teeth are in his throat. They both go shudderingly still. Adam's heart is pounding, not with fear or exhaustion but excitement. He growls again, quietly. Kris finally, finally whines and goes limp. Adam waits, doesn't relinquish his grip, just to be sure. When Kris whines again, starting to shake, Adam unlocks his jaw and back away.

He forces himself up onto two legs, though it's one of the hardest things he's ever done. Kris shifts too, but his eyes stay closed; he stays down with his head tilted back and his hands pressed very carefully flat to the floor. He smells upset, angry and ashamed and sad, and Adam has to spit words past the animal sounds lodged in his throat.

"It's okay," he says. "You can get up."

Kris rolls gracefully, keeping his eyes lowered even as he stands.

"Come here," Adam says, because he knows how this works and right now everything in them is screaming to finish what they've started.

"No," Kris says, and he tries to meet Adam's gaze as he says it. His eyes skip over Adam's face, but it's close enough to a challenge that Adam's hackles go up.

"Fuck this," and Kris flinches, "and fuck you, you don't get to do this."

"I do, though," Kris says. "I choose what I do, not some animal instinct that says I should give myself to the first alpha I meet."

"Alright," Adam says slowly. He thought Kris already knew this, but— "That's not how this works. It's not coincidental, I show up and you show up and that's it. You've probably run into dozens of alphas in your life, they just weren't your alpha. It's a part of you. It's just another part of us."

"I've never been able to think of it that way," Kris says, and picks up Adam's phone. He holds it out like an apology. Adam grabs his wrist, takes the phone from him and drops it. Kris watches while he fits their fingers together.

"We can work on that," Adam says. They're both still too hot, skin burning from the successive changes, from the animal traits still pushing up from beneath their skins. Adam can smell the want curling off of Kris and he gives it back to him tenfold.

It backfires though, Kris starts shaking his head, and Adam decides dignity can go fuck itself and lets Kris smell his desperation, his frustration, his loneliness compounded over months of having Kris nearby and never having him fully.

Kris breathes out, shudders and sways into Adam, and Adam curls around him, out there on the balcony where everything smells like nature and home. This time when Adam's teeth find Kris' pulse he isn't whining to get away.

End. 


End file.
